BABYFACE
Elizabeth Woodcraft

Dedication

For my mother, Peggy Perry

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

One: Tuesday Afternoon

Two: Birmingham

Three: Wednesday Morning – Crown Court

Four: Wednesday – Court 7

Five: Wednesday Afternoon – The Inquiry

Six: Thursday – Inquiry

Seven: Friday – Chambers

Eight: Friday Evening

Nine: Saturday

Ten: Saturday Evening – The Dinner Party

Eleven: Sunday – Mum’s for Lunch

Twelve: Sunday Evening – Yolande?

Thirteen: Monday Morning – Inquiry

Fourteen: Monday Evening

Fifteen: Tuesday

Sixteen: Wednesday – Inquiry

Seventeen: Wednesday Evening

Eighteen: Thursday

Nineteen: Thursday Dinner – Dance

Twenty: Friday – Back to London

Twenty-One: Saturday – Euston

Twenty-Two: Saturday Lunch

Twenty-Three: Saturday Evening

Twenty-Four: Sunday Lunch

Twenty-Five: Sunday Afternoon

Twenty Six: Monday Morning – Clerkenwell

Twenty-Seven: Tuesday – Birmingham Crown Court

Twenty-Eight: Later Tuesday Morning – Inquiry/View

Twenty-Nine: Wednesday – Police Questioning

Thirty: Thursday Morning

Thirty-One: Thursday Evening

Thirty Two: Friday – Picnic

Thirty-Three: Hospital

Thirty-Four: Saturday – Back to Clerkenwell

Thirty-Five: Sunday – Birmingham

Thirty-Six: Monday Morning

Thirty Seven: Monday Afternoon – Crown Court

Thirty-Eight: Monday – Late Afternoon

Thirty-Nine: Later Monday Evening

Forty: Tuesday – Inquiry

Forty-One: Thursday – Tony’s Do

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

ONETuesday Afternoon

I was just getting into the rhythm of packing when the phone rang. I was slinging socks and a toothbrush into my bag and wondering if I could get away with one suit for the rest of the week.

It was Gavin, my clerk. ‘You’re still at home then?’ he said.

The obviousness of the question left me silent.

‘Your solicitor’s just rung to say the inquiry has been put back till two thirty.’

‘So I don’t have to go up at all tonight. I can go in the morning. That’s great.’ I began to unbutton my black shirt. I was wearing my work outfit so there’d be less to carry. Already I was planning my evening. I could have a great night out in Stoke Newington with a few close friends, go to Fox’s wine bar, share a couple of bottles of wine, cruise a little.

‘Well.’ There was a pause which meant Gavin was trying to choose his next words carefully.

‘Oh God, Gavin,’ I said. ‘You’re going to say something to make me regret answering the phone, aren’t you?’

‘It’s just a short matter in the morning. You’re going up there anyway. You’ll be away by ten thirty. Loads of time to get to the inquiry in the afternoon.’

I said nothing.

‘It’s a PDH at the Crown Court.’

‘Gavin, how many times do I have to tell you, I don’t do crime. A pleas and directions hearing will turn into a guilty plea. I will have to do the mitigation, the judge will adjourn it till after lunch. I will have to go back after lunch thereby missing the beginning of the inquiry, and then my clients, or even the panel itself, will sack me. Great.’

‘There is no way this will turn into a plea,’ he said. ‘It’s Simon’s corpseless murder.’

‘Then Simon can do it. Simon should do it. Isn’t that the rule? The person who does the trial does the directions hearing?’

‘Unless there’s a very good reason. And there is. He’s ill.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘He’s twisted his ankle.’

I spurted with laughter and was about to say, ‘Pull the other one.’

‘No, honestly,’ Gavin said. ‘He was jogging.’

Once again my theory was proved correct. There is an inherent contradiction between personal fitness and personal safety.

‘Have a heart, Frankie,’ Gavin said. ‘I know you don’t want to do it but Simon’s very careful who he returns his cases to, and he did say you were his first choice.’

‘The first choice out of all the people from chambers who will be in Birmingham tomorrow?’

‘Is that sarcasm, Frankie? Unattractive trait. But seriously, Simon was delighted when I suggested you.’

‘Huh,’ I said, pleased. ‘But if he’s ill, is he going to be fit to do the trial?’

‘He’ll be fine by Monday.’

‘Gavin, I really don’t need this. I’m still getting papers for tomorrow, my fax is about to expire with all the statements my solicitor is sending me. Plus the comments on the statements. And the comments on the comments.’

‘Frankie, there isn’t anyone else and if the brief goes out of chambers we risk losing it altogether. Don’t do it for me, do it for Simon.’

Simon was a senior member of my chambers. Like most barristers he worried about his practice and I knew that with this case he was hoping to consolidate his reputation as a heavyweight criminal practitioner which would lead to his shortly applying to become Queen’s Counsel, to wear the robes of silk. Slowly I buttoned up my shirt.

‘How am I going to get the papers? There’s no time to get the papers to me.’

‘When are you leaving? I’ll fax them through to you.’

‘My plan had been to leave in about half an hour, to miss the rush hour, but that was before you said that the inquiry had been put back till tomorrow afternoon. At which point, for a split second I began planning a social life for myself in London.’

‘Yes, but wouldn’t you rather be doing something for chambers?’

‘Quite frankly, no. But, before you start again Gavin, OK,’ I said, ‘I will do it, but you owe me one.’ A thought struck me. ‘Oh no, the client must be in custody, so I’ll have to go and see him in the cells, won’t I? Then he’ll either say, “I don’t want a woman”, which will be embarrassing, or he’ll demand I stay on as Simon’s junior, which isn’t going to happen.’

‘They’re not bringing him,’ Gavin said, with hardly a pause for breath. ‘You’re first on at ten o’clock, His Honour Judge Norman, Court 7.’

‘Is this in chambers or do I have to robe?’

‘I’m not sure about Birmingham, you’d better take your wig and gown just in case. Now, have I got your cousin’s number?’

He’d won, and meekly I gave him Julie’s details.

‘Email?’ he asked.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ I said.

The fax machine rang and slowly pages from the brief in Simon’s case appeared.

I shouldn’t have agreed to do the PDH. I really needed a clear head for the start of the inquiry. This was a big one for me, my first really big case. I still wasn’t sure how it came about that I had been instructed. I was representing twelve adults, five men and seven women, who had been physically and sexually abused in their residential home by five carers. Some wanted vengeance, some simply wanted to know how it had been allowed to happen, they all wanted to stop it happening to anyone else.

It had been in my diary for over six months, the date being put back every couple of months because the chair of the inquiry had other commitments, or someone’s solicitor was ill, or a team manager was on holiday.

I’d had one conference with my clients, which had been raucous to say the least. Not only were they fed up with the delays, but three different solicitors within the firm had dealt with the case since I’d been instructed. I hadn’t even met the most recent one. The clients were seething. But I was determined to keep the brief. A case like this could make your career. Or break it.

My fax machine had stopped. Ten pages had come through from Gavin. Ten of ten. That didn’t seem a lot for a tricky murder, but if Simon felt that was enough then it must be enough. I glanced at the back sheet and realised that Gavin had failed to mention that the instructing solicitor in Simon’s case was Kay Davidson. I wondered if he had done it deliberately. I thought of ringing him to ask, but I knew that the answer would probably irritate me. Kay was one of Gavin’s favourite solicitors. The fact that she was an ex of mine was only a minor complication. Anyway, apart from a brief phonecall after the hearing tomorrow morning to let her know the outcome, I wouldn’t need to have any contact with her, which was probably best for all of us.

I shovelled the new papers and the huge brief for the inquiry into a second bag, threw in an alarm clock, and my packing was finished. I glanced round the living room and reluctantly I carried two empty wine glasses and a used coffee mug into the kitchen. Then I picked up three old copies of the Guardian from the sofa, straightened the rug in front of the fireplace, and, having switched on the timer that worked the two lamps, I left.

TWOBirmingham

Of course I didn’t miss the rush hour at all. Well, I missed it for a bit, but my car, an L-reg Renault, was taking it steady, so that by the time I got to the turn off for Luton Airport and was wishing I’d brought my passport, as I always do on that stretch of road, the rush hour caught up with me and stayed by my side, jostling and pushing, till we got past Watford Gap.

I arrived at Julie’s redbrick terraced house in Selly Oak at eight o’clock. Marnie, her fifteen-year-old daughter, answered the door. Ever since she was eleven I have been surprised each time I see her by the growing maturity of her appearance. She kissed me effusively then went back across the room to watch the TV. I made my way through the living room to the back of the house.

Julie was in the kitchen, looking at a pizza in the oven. You could tell Julie and I were blood relatives, neither of us liked cooking.

She hugged me and suggested I take my things up to my room before supper. ‘Marnie!’ she called, ‘show Frankie where everything is.’

Marnie stomped ahead of me up the narrow, dark staircase to the first floor, and then up another flight to the loft, the room that was to be my home away from home for as long as the inquiry lasted.

‘It’s great,’ I said. I hadn’t seen it since Julie had converted it into an extra room. Pale wooden floorboards, white walls and a television standing on a chest of drawers. I didn’t need anything else. I knew I would be happy here. At one end of the room was the bed, with a duvet in a royal-blue cotton cover. ‘That goes into a sofa,’ Marnie said, following my gaze. ‘And there’s this lamp.’ She switched on a small white lamp with a bendy neck. ‘That was mine,’ she said, with a trace of bitterness.

‘Well, I was intending to bring up some stuff of my own next week,’ I said, quickly. ‘Including a couple of lamps.’

She thought for a moment. ‘What if I like yours more than mine?’ she said.

‘We can swap,’ I said. ‘Thanks for a great guided tour, I think I can hear the TV calling you.’

In a second she had slipped out of the room.

As well as the futon there was a good-sized table and a sensible office chair, beside which stood an empty bookcase. I imagined the shelves filled with a few of my favourite books, looking colourful and interesting. My cassette player would fit just nicely on the bottom shelf. I turned to the clock radio by the bed and fiddled with the dial. Having found the easy rhythm of ‘The Way You Do the Things You Do’ I fell back onto the bed. With my hands behind my head and the Temptations harmonising gently round the room I felt content, and I had a sense that my problems were sorting themselves out.

My practice and my bank balance might actually improve as a result of doing this inquiry, which in turn could lead to a new car and some new clothes. And then, looking sleek and successful and driving a shiny new vehicle, I would inexorably start a rich and satisfying relationship, filled with passion, good music and true love. A relationship of my own, not sharing with anyone, not thinking mixed and angry thoughts about Kay, or just falling for the wrong kind of gal – although who could resist a woman singing soft and sexy love songs, in a red sequin dress with curves and high-heel shoes … ?

I was beginning to get maudlin, I could feel it, and the Four Tops were reminding me that they were ‘Standing in the Shadows of Love’. I jumped off the bed to unpack.

I laid my two briefs in neat piles on the bed. The brief in Simon’s case was small and narrow. I had wrapped it in a piece of the pink ribbon which grows at the bottom of all my work bags. It wouldn’t take long to read. I’d do it after supper.

My inquiry brief was enormous, but I’d read most of it. I skimmed through the latest thoughts of my inquiry clients. They had met as a group on their own several times, they had written letters, they had even organised demonstrations. Now they wanted some legal action, and they wanted to get started.

I made a few notes on matters I should raise with them tomorrow afternoon – whether they were still anxious to put our case first, double check exactly who wanted to give evidence, whether we should ask for a view of Haslam Hall, and remind them what the procedure at the inquiry was likely to be.

Then I closed my notebook and followed the smell of burning pizza down to the small dining room. Julie, Marnie and I sat round the square utility table covered in maroon oilskin, by the window that looked out over the side passage at the back of the house where Julie had hung pots of geraniums. Marnie ate her Hawaiian with extra caramelised pineapple in silence, sighing loudly from time to time, as Julie and I exchanged family gossip, mainly about our mothers, who were sisters.

When Julie said to me, ‘Your hair looks nice,’ Marnie looked at me and then back at Julie.

‘It’s just like yours,’ she said to her mother.

Julie’s hair was short at the back and had a floppy fringe that skimmed her eyebrows.

‘Your hair is really nice,’ I said to Julie.

Marnie tutted in disgust and stroked her own hair, which was pulled back from her face in a thick golden-brown ponytail.

As soon as she had finished her pizza she excused herself and slid back into the living room. Julie made tea and as we sat at the table, talking about GCSEs and the last time Julie had been out on her own and what films were on in town, I felt the comfort and security of staying somewhere with other people to talk to and discuss articles in the Guardian with. The words to ‘We are Family’ drifted through my head. I shook myself and made a mental note to be alert for further signs of the family vortex thing. So easy to slip into, so hard to climb out of.

It was a quarter to eleven when I sat cross-legged on the bed and began to read through the papers in Simon’s case. If I had done it earlier I might have rung Gavin back and shouted ‘Be serious!’ and laughed maniacally down the phone. Of course Gavin knows how I work, so he deliberately faxed me the papers just as I was leaving. He calculated how long it would take me to get to Birmingham, unpack, have something to eat, an hour or so of chat with my cousin, and bingo, it’s eleven o’clock and far too late to return the brief. I felt like ringing him up and laughing maniacally down the phone anyway.

For a start it quickly became clear that I had nowhere near enough papers. The ten sheets of paper that had come through my machine included the fax letter, and also the back sheet to the brief, which in terms of legal importance is the equivalent of an envelope. To attend court to sort out the final directions for a trial, which I read was listed to last for three weeks, I had eight pages of information. Kay is a very good solicitor and her instructions, dense and informative, ran to six pages. But she had obviously prepared the brief for tomorrow morning’s hearing thinking Simon was doing it; Simon who had had days to read everything.

From what she had written it was clear that somewhere – probably on the floor in Simon’s room in chambers – there were about six lever arch files containing statements, reports, interviews, even, I read, a couple of videos, in other words a detailed description of everything Danny Richards was meant to have done and how the prosecution were going to prove it. And I had eight pages of it. I just hoped the judge wouldn’t ask me any trick questions. Or any questions at all.

The last paragraph of my instructions read:

‘As counsel will remember, Mr Richards is a difficult client who has had much experience of dealing with the legal profession. Counsel is reminded that he has sacked one firm of solicitors and two counsel already. As well as doing his best at this hearing, counsel is required to ensure that Mr Richards is satisfied with the service he receives.’

And how would the difficult Mr Richards react if he knew that instead of the big, firm assertive Simon Allison, the smaller, slimmer family practitioner Miss F. Richmond was appearing on his behalf? Good job he wouldn’t be there to see it.

The last two pages of the fax were ‘the missing pages of his CRO as requested’ – information from the Criminal Records Office of Mr Richards’ previous convictions. If these were the missing pages I dreaded to think what the other pages contained and how many there were. These pages were crammed with entries. The first page covered the early seventies and the second the late eighties.

For a defence barrister this man was very bad news. Just looking at the pages I had I could see he had visited most of the juvenile courts in the South of England, on at least fifteen occasions. Not a local boy then. The pages revealed no violence against women, which was something. The first page ran from 1969 to 1974. Two of his convictions were for ‘common assault against another youth’ for which he had been bound over, which meant it was probably a bit of weekend strutting about, but his weakness had obviously been cars, stealing them, driving them away, without a licence, without insurance, without due care and attention. By the time he was fourteen, in 1974, he’d been banned from driving for twenty years.

Of course, looking at that sheet through the eyes of a self-styled liberal, it seemed as if he’d never had a chance. He was dealt with harshly from the start, sentenced to Intermediate Treatment, Detention Centre, Borstal. The second sheet jumped ahead eleven years, and was now based round Crown Courts in the Midlands. The inevitable had happened. It looked as if he had fallen in with a bad crowd in his late twenties, there was an affray in 1985 and in 1988, a serious GBH. He’d been sentenced to five years for that. In 1993 there was an attempted murder – a man had lost a leg – and Danny Richards had said goodbye to the outside world for nine years, but on appeal it was reduced to seven.

I wondered who the man with one leg was. I wondered what he thought about the reduction in Danny Richards’ sentence.

And now he was on a charge of murder. With an unlikely victim, certainly as far as pages three and four of the instructions were concerned. An underworld villain, Terry Fleming, had disappeared. He was a small-time crook and heavy man, who hired out his services to local businessmen, in between selling cars and playing a mean hand of blackjack. Some nine months previously, three days after Danny Richards had been released from HM Prison, Parkhurst, having completed five years of the seven-year sentence, Fleming had gone out for a birthday celebration, dressed in his finest and newest four-button, mohair grey suit, and never come home. His body had never been found. He had last been seen at one of Birmingham’s brightest and hottest nightspots, the Lambada Casino.

Perhaps there would be the chance of a night at the casino, I thought, to feel the atmosphere Fleming had been in, to see what he had seen. I could wear a cool black jacket, some black patent shoes, try a twist of the poker cards, slide some chips across the green baize, faire mes jeux.

But what was I thinking? I had no intention of having anything more to do with Danny Richards’ case after tomorrow. On the stroke of half past ten I would announce to the judge that my time was up, and I would rise and tie the pink ribbon firmly round the papers, write Simon’s name on the back sheet in large letters and walk out of the court building without a backward glance.

As you can imagine.

Of course the trouble with a good juicy criminal brief is that you get sucked in, you get involved and excited by the possibilities. I made a list of things I would do if this case were mine:

Check the Malaga coast line. No corpse can so often mean no murder.

Check police missing-persons files for reports of disappeared young, nubile women to see if Fleming had run off with someone (or nubile men – what better reason for a man to leave the country than if he thinks he’ll lose his reputation as a hard man if his sexuality is revealed?)

Investigate other reasons for wanting to disappear. Had he fallen out with someone? Was he trying to go straight? Was he threatening to tell all?

Consider the possibility of suicide – did he have any reason to commit suicide (see above)? Are there any forms of suicide that allow the body to self-destruct so that no traces remain – e.g. throwing oneself into a vat of acid?

Who might want to kill him? What would Danny Richards’ motive be?

According to Kay’s instructions, the prosecution case against Danny Richards was pretty weak, based on circumstantial evidence. The statements of the witnesses offered little information other than the fact that Danny and Fleming had never got on. There was a hint of a long-standing quarrel, a suggestion of an argument the night before he disappeared. No more than that. The case could well be thrown out at half-time, at the end of the prosecution case, after a stirring submission of no case to answer. From the way Kay was describing it, Simon could probably make that submission on the papers alone, before a word of oral evidence had been given.

This was good. This meant I could be extremely condescending to the prosecution, and swagger round the courtroom in controlled indignation.

But reading between the lines of her upbeat instructions, I could tell that Danny Richards was going to have an uphill struggle. He’d apparently said some fairly stupid things to the police, which could amount to admissions of guilt. It would be difficult to keep them from going in front of the jury without calling the police liars. That counted out the possibility of an early submission. It also meant the risk of the jury hearing about his previous convictions. The jury wouldn’t like him at all. And then, almost as a throwaway comment at the end of the instructions, there was a mention of the laughable ‘forensic evidence’ Simon was being asked to consider. From the instructions I couldn’t tell what it was. A finger print? A spot of blood? Fibres? Kay had written that it was harmless enough on its own but in the context of the trial, could be fairly damning. The possibility of an acquittal seemed remote.

But tomorrow my main task was to hang on to him. It was a good thing he wasn’t going to be there, to ask me hard questions like, ‘Am I going to get off?’

It was midnight. I could still ring up Simon and demand his limping attendance. Or Gavin, to demand his, to explain to the judge why Simon wasn’t there. But I couldn’t do that. It was beneath me. I had to take it like a woman.

The best thing to do was to get a good night’s sleep to be fresh and clear-eyed for the judge.

THREEWednesday Morning – Crown Court

But it wasn’t just the judge, it was Danny too. Because of course, they brought him.

I went to the cells, just in case, and asked nonchalantly whether they had him.

‘Oh yes, madam.’ The jailer had a cup of tea and a copy of the Sun open on the desk in front of him. I gave him my name. ‘Just you is it?’ he asked in the false anxious tone they use to wind-up women barristers. ‘You want to go in on your own?’

Gavin had assured me that, whatever impression the papers might give, the client was a pussycat. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Personally I won’t have a cat in the house.

‘If you would make your way to room number three, madam,’ the jailer said, reluctantly rising to press the intercom to ask for Danny Richards to be brought through. I walked down the corridor, under fluorescent lights, to the small concrete room with a table and three tubular chairs.

I laid my wig and a packet of Benson & Hedges on the table.

The interview began badly. ‘Where’s my brief?’ he said shortly as he barged into the room. He was big, stocky, with a face that would have been pleasant if it wasn’t for the very short hairstyle. He was wearing a tight, short-sleeved, camouflage green T-shirt, over bulging biceps and baggy combat trousers. He was on remand, he was still considered innocent, so he could wear what he liked. Simon would doubtless advise him to get a different outfit for the trial.

He slumped into the other chair in the room. ‘Where’s my brief?’ His hands curled into fists on the table.

‘If you mean Simon Allison,’ I said, ‘he’s in hospital having a pin put in his ankle.’ I made a mental note to tell Simon that. ‘On the other hand, this morning and this morning only,’ I inclined my head towards my wig, ‘I’m your brief. My name is Frankie Richmond.’ I held out my hand. He looked at it reluctantly. Then decided not to shake it.

I smoothed open my blue counsel’s notebook.

‘Mr Richards, the purpose of this morning’s hearing is to make the final preparations for the trial.’

He looked at me with a bored expression, picking up the pack of cigarettes and removing the cellophane.

‘It’s pleas and directions. You pleaded not guilty on …’ I rifled through my ten pages, knowing the date on which Danny had entered his plea was one of the many things they did not contain.

‘I’m thinking of changing that. My plea. I’m thinking of going guilty.’

‘Oh no you’re not.’

‘I can do what I like, I’m paying your fees.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I think someone else is paying my fees. But perhaps your name isn’t Richards at all, perhaps it’s Aid, or can I call you Legal?’

‘That’s Mr Aid to you.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘Don’t get smart,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a right to representation, same as that bloke Saunders did. And the Maxwell brothers.’

‘Of course you have, probably more,’ I said. ‘But we’re getting off the point. You are not going to change your plea. Your lawyers having been working very hard for…’ I rustled my papers, ‘a long time, and they are…’ I coughed, ‘confident of victory.’

He nodded. ‘But I’m going to be convicted.’ He took out a cigarette and I handed him a box of matches. As he struck the match he said, ‘Where is my barrister really?’

‘Simon’s at hospital. There’s something wrong with his ankle. He’ll be fine for the trial, but he particularly wanted me to do this hearing for you this morning.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s a question I have been asking myself since the moment my clerk told me about today, Mr Richards,’ I said. ‘I think in another life I must have done something really terrible to him.’

His face cracked into a smile. ‘I like you,’ he said.

Oh God.

I looked at my watch.

‘We’ve got twenty minutes before Norman has us in,’ he said, knowledgeably. ‘Look, they’ve stitched me up and they’ve done a good job. You’ve read the papers. You can see, can’t you?’

I shook my head vaguely.

‘It’s funny really. I’ve known him for years. Never liked him – a self-important twat. I expect your old dad always told you never to trust a secondhand car dealer. Well, Terry Fleming is the reason why. But there’s loads more people I would rather have taken a pop at. But he disappears and they come and arrest me. And what have they got?’

‘A “no-comment” interview.’ I knew that much.

‘Yeah, but they’ve got the other stuff. What I said in the car. I admit I did say one or two things behind my hand, being ironic. And that is how they think they’ve got me admitting to this murder. And what with the forensics.’ He stopped. ‘Let’s just say, I want to change my plea. I’ve been in front of Norman before, he doesn’t like me, I know how this is going to go.’

‘But the conversation in the car…’ I hesitated. I was on difficult ground here, I wasn’t entirely clear what he’d said, what he’d said he’d said or what they said he’d said. ‘Simon can argue that’s inadmissable.’

‘He could, but it’ll go in. Then somehow my previous convictions will go in, probably thanks to my codefendant, Mr Catcher, who as you know is charged with conspiracy, but who I would no more conspire with than get in a spat with.’

I made a surreptitious note. A co-defendant was good. If he was first on the indictment, the charge sheet, I might not have to say a word during the hearing this morning.

‘So my previous goes in and the jury hears about my climb up the ladder of physical violence – common assault, ABH, GBH, and attempted murder. The pross says something like, “And now the charge is murder. In criminal terms, members of the jury, he has come of age.” ’ He inhaled deeply and hunched forward in his chair. It was a good imitation of a pompous prosecution barrister. ‘Then what chance have I got? Down I go and Freddy Hanging’s-too-good-for-them Norman recommends thirty years for a “heartless gangland execution”. I might as well go guilty now and he knocks some time off in consideration.’

Part of me knew he had a point. But another part of me knew I was not prepared for a plea in mitigation. A shard of desperation told me there was a chance he would win if he fought the case. And a sense of justice told me he should fight it, if he hadn’t done it.

‘But you might win,’ I said.

He snorted and sat back in his chair with a grin on his face, leaving me with a small internal war going on. I didn’t know what else to say. I certainly couldn’t say ‘Actually, I’m not really meant to be here, in fact I’m not even a criminal barrister any more, and I am starting a case with some uppity clients at two thirty, a case which is going to open the path to heaven and possibly a fleet of fancy cars for me, and if I do your plea they’ll sack me.’ He was lighting a cigarette from the embers of his first one. The room was cold and full of misty smoke, like being on Dartmoor. I could almost hear small ponies neighing and pawing the ground.

I said, ‘We’re not ready for a plea today. I’d want to spend a long time with you to prepare your mitigation, and we don’t have time for that now. Also,’ here we go, ‘I’ll be straight with you. I have to be somewhere else this afternoon.’

‘What did they send you for if you can’t do it?’

‘Because “it” is listed as a thirty minute PDH.’

‘Which stands for pleas and directions. And that’s what I want. I want to put in a plea, a guilty plea and get a direction that the whole thing is over and done with today. You just want me to stay not guilty because you want to get away. Where are you going?’

‘I have a case. I’m representing…’ I paused. Mentally I was checking my professional position. This was not breaching confidentiality. ‘I’m representing some people at an inquiry.’

‘Oh yeah?’ He was interested. ‘Who you representing?’

‘The victims. Look, I do want to get away, but it’s not going to make any difference to your sentence if you plead guilty today or next week,’ I said. ‘But for God’s sake, you’ve got so little to lose by fighting it. Plead guilty, you get life. Plead not guilty and lose, you get life. And I think there are investigations to be made – I don’t know if they’ve been done – that could help your case.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like, I don’t know, checking local newspaper reports for the month Fleming disappeared, retracing his last known steps, talking to his mum.’

‘All right, you can stop worrying.’ He rolled his cigarette between his fingers. ‘Write this down. “This morning, I will not ask to change my plea.” ’ I scribbled on my faxed back sheet. He held out his hand for the pen and signed his initials. ‘You’re a good little barrister, aren’t you? I’d like to see you cross-examining someone.’

‘Yes, I’m a real Rottweiler,’ I said.

‘No, I’d say you were more of a – what are they called?’

‘A Borzoi?’ I said, imagining something elegant and sophisticated.

‘No, no, I was thinking more like a Jack Russell.’

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